Seeing he was awake, the creature reached forward and ripped the tube from his chest with one abrupt jerk. Pytor gasped, air streaming into his mouth, down his throat and to the new lungs. He screamed, the sound echoing through the cavern.
Dane stood on the beach, staring out at Chelsea playing in the Pacific Ocean. The golden retriever would dash out with the surf, then retreat as each wave approached, then repeat it each time as if it were a new experience and she was surprised at the water coming in.
“You’re not very bright,” Dane said.
Chelsea turned and gave him a disapproving look, only to get soaked as the next wave hit her in the side. Dane was also startled as a voice suddenly caught his attention to his left.
“My brother disappeared out there in 1945.” Foreman nodded toward the ocean off the coast of Japan. They were waiting for a helicopter to meet them and fly them north to meet with Nagoya. The runway was adjacent to the beach, and Dane had taken the opportunity to walk Chelsea. He had been surprised when Foreman accompanied him.
“You believe he went into the Devil’s Sea gate?” Dane asked.
“The entire flight, minus my plane, simply disappeared,” Foreman said. “I was spared because I had engine trouble and had to ditch. The weather was fine, visibility to the horizon. They were all experienced pilots on their way back to the carrier. We had the Japanese licked to the point where there was practically no opposition in the air. What else could have caused all those planes to vanish?”
Dane saw no reason to argue with Foreman’s reasoning. The old man had his own crosses to bear with regard to the gates. “You recruited Sin Fen, didn’t you?” Dane asked instead.
Foreman nodded. “She was living on the streets of Phnom Penh. Barely surviving. I sensed something about her, that she had some connection with the gates. Just as I sensed it about you.”
“Are you sure you recruited her,” Dane said, “and it wasn’t the other way around?”
“What do you mean?”
“What she did to stop the Bermuda Triangle gate,” Dane said, “was not normal, to say the least. She was special. It seems strange that you would be so lucky to simply find her on the streets of Phnom Penh. It seems more logical that she sought you out.”
“What difference does it make?” Foreman asked.
“The difference,” Dane said, “is that if she sought you out, then you’re not running things like you want to believe.” He let the silence after that statement last for several seconds before he spoke again. “You had no idea she was part of the pyramid system or the role she was to play. The problem, as I see it, is that Sin Fen is gone now, and we’re on our own.”
“And?” Foreman finally asked.
“And,” Dane said, “I suggest you start being honest with me. Stop making plans behind my back and informing me of them after the fact. We might have been able to get that information about the gate without losing the Reveille or the Deepflight and all those people.”
“I do what I have to do,” Foreman said.
“One of these days you’re going to be the point man,” Dane said.
“And if I am, I’ll do my duty,” Foreman said.
Dane realized that Foreman meant what he said. He was willing to give up his life if it meant defeating the Shadow.
“There’s another problem,” Dane said.
“Which is?”
“We don’t have another Sin Fen handy,” Dane said.
“And?”
“And that means we don’t’ have and important piece that’s needed to shut a gate,” Dane said. “She came from a long line of priestesses. Do you have any information on that?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Dane said.
“There’ve been many cults that promoted priestesses,” Foreman said. “And, yes, I’ve looked into them. I’ll have a copy of the file forwarded for you. But I don’t have a line on a current group.
“Sin Fen was current,” Dane noted.
“I’m not an idiot,” Foreman said. “I checked Sin Fen out as much as I could. She was an orphan on the streets of Phnom Penh. I think she was descended from the priestesses of Angkor, but the line has been scattered, and it was the power of the gate and my investigating it that drew her to me, not a deliberate plan on her part.”
“How did she know her role in the pyramid?” Dane asked.
“That I don’t know. I would assume some sort of genetic memory. Or the voices of the gods you two were babbling about.”
Dane wasn’t sure how much he agreed with Foreman. It could have been genetic memory, or it could have been the voices of the gods that he himself heard: where that came from or what exactly it was, he didn’t know, but he was learning to trust that inner voice more and more.
“How would—” Foreman began, but Dane held up a hand, hushing him.
Chelsea was absolutely still in knee-deep water, her head cocked, ears erect, looking out to sea. Dane almost mimicked her pose, intense, still, except his eyes were closed as he tried to see with his special sense.
There was a strong presence in the water not far away. Dane didn’t feel any danger, but the presence was something he had never experienced before, very foreign and alien. He picked up thoughts but could make no sense of them. Correction. There were several presences, highly intelligent, very close by, studying Foreman, Chelsea, and him on the beach from the security of the water.
“What is it?” Foreman finally asked.
Dane held his hand up once more. Foreman’s voice an irritating insect’s buzz in his ear. He took a step into the water toward Chelsea. The fact that the dog showed no sign of fear he took as encouraging. He knelt in the surf next to Chelsea, putting a hand on her neck. For some strange reason, he knew that the dog was actually picking up the strange presence better than he was.
Dane scanned the surface of the water. He saw a spray of water in the air, then a dorsal fin cutting the blue surface, curving around, coming toward him and Chelsea. He stood.
“Dane!” Foreman’s voice was alarmed.
But Dane could see the fin change course once more and head to his right. He turned, then was startled as Chelsea leapt through the surf in the same direction. Dane splashed after her.
Fifty meters down the beach, something was caught on the beach in the area between water and land, struggling in the outgoing tide. It was about two feet long and bluish gray and also sported a small dorsal fin. Dane relaxed when he realized he was looking at a baby dolphin. Chelsea ran right up to it and pushed it with her nose, helping it out toward the ocean.
In a few seconds, the small dolphin was in deep enough water to swim. It shot away from Chelsea, who gave a triumphant bark, then galloped back to Dane.
“Good girl,” Dane said, as he turned back toward Foreman, but then he picked up something from Chelsea. Together, they looked out to sea. A row of dolphins, at least a dozen, were coming toward them, fins cutting the surface. Then they all stopped about twenty meters away and rose up on their tails, half out of the water, dark eyes staring at Dane and Chelsea.
One of them, a magnificent specimen almost fifteen feet long, moved slightly forward. Chelsea barked. Dane knew that the dolphin was communicating in some way with his dog, but he couldn’t pick up anything directly. Then he saw it, relayed from Chelsea: a darkness in the ocean, danger.
Just as quickly as they had come, the dolphins turned and disappeared beneath the waves. Dane was startled as the sound of helicopter blades slicing through air cut into his conscious mind. A Japanese military chopper came in low over the water, circled, and set down. The side door slid open, and a crew member waved for them to get on board.